Name that book: super powers from imagining you're sucking on a funny shape?

October 3, 2009 3:57 PM

Is this a real book? All I remember is that 1 or more characters could activate some kind of special powers or transformational abilities by imagining the shape of a particular object in their mouth.

I vaguely remember a story from my youth in which the character(s) could trigger something special by very explicitly imagining how a particular shape would feel in the mouth. My memory is that they would try to vividly conjure the feeling of holding a diamond-shaped, dice-like object in the mouth. If they did it right, they would temporarily have some magical power, or they would change into another form, or something. I've also got this phrase "form the sembler" attached to this particular memory, but I have no idea whether it's really related. I think the characters had to use these powers to fight against something sinister.

I think I would have read this between the ages of 10 and 15, so early 1990s, but I was reading a mixture of youth and grown-up fiction at that point.

Does this sound at all familiar? Google is giving me nothing, probably because I can't think of a concise way to describe imagining the shape of an object in the mouth.

posted by vytae to Writing & Language (4 answers total)

To answer only your last question, yes, it sounds familiar — you're not crazy — but I can't remember exactly what it's from either. I vaguely want to say "A Wrinkle In Time" but that's not it — maybe one of the sequels?
posted by nicwolff at 6:51 PM on October 3, 2009

And "form the sembler" sounds like something out of Riddley Walker to me.
posted by nicwolff at 6:56 PM on October 3, 2009

Totally wild guess, but this reminds me a little of the "pneuma" in Clive Barker's Imajica.
posted by hot soup girl at 8:18 PM on October 3, 2009

Hmm, none of those seem familiar from their Amazon descriptions. I'm pretty sure it's not a Madeleine L'Engle book, because I've read most of those a dozen times and would remember. Anyway, thanks for the suggestions! If nobody jumps in with another answer, I'll just assume I'm remembering as real something I dreamed as a child -- stumping metafilter can be enough resolution for me.
posted by vytae at 2:57 PM on October 4, 2009